Contact: Janet Mendelsohn
617-283-2373
email: jmendelsohn@wellesley.edu
January 23, 1996
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Alan H. Schechter, professor of Political Science at Wellesley College, has been elected vice chairman of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board which awards Fulbright Scholarship grants and sets policy for the Fulbright international educational exchange programs in the U.S. and abroad. Mr. Schechter was appointed to the 12-member board by President Clinton in January 1995 for a three-year term and has since served on its Executive Committee.
Professor Schechter has taught American constitutional issues, politics and public policy at Wellesley College for 34 years. A former chair of the political science department, he has been a full professor since 1976. He has lectured in Italy, England and Malta on American politics, elections and law. For more than 20 years he also has appeared on television and radio stations in Italy, France, Germany, England, Russia, Switzerland, Holland, Japan, Malta and the United States. His comments have been broadcast to Eastern European countries by Radio Free Europe. During the Bicentennial of the American Constitution he authored a series of newspaper columns and lectured widely thoughout the United States.
Dr. Schechter was among the first scholars recognized by the National Endowment for the Humanities which awarded him a research grant for his book, Contemporary Constitutional Issues (1972, McGraw Hill), a study of the law and politics of six major domestic issues: voting rights, dissent and the war in Vietnam, crime in the streets, fair housing, public aid to parochial schools, and northern school segregation.
In 1960, Professor Schechter was a Fulbright Scholar at the International Court of Justice and the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. His research led to a book on international administrative law published by the Royal Society of International Affairs of the University of London.
At Wellesley, Professor Schechter has served as a member of the College's Fulbright, Truman, and Rhodes scholarship committees. He has served as an academic advisor to foreign students attending Wellesley and to American students spending their junior year abroad.
A graduate of Amherst College, Dr. Schechter studied at Yale Law School and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1965. Among numerous honors and awards during his career, the Danforth Foundation has recognized his commitment to undergraduate teaching. Organizations that have supported his research include the National Institutes of Mental Health, the Ford Foundation, and the U.S. Steel Foundation.
Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 1996, the Fulbright Program seeks to promote mutual understanding. The program funds academic studies, research and other educational activities, both for American citizens and for citizens of foreign countries. The program also promotes American studies in foreign countries and foreign language training and area studies in the United States and abroad. Approximately 140 countries participate each year. The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board selects students, scholars, and teachers to participate in the educational exchanges. It is anticipated that close to 4,500 grants will be awarded through the U.S. Information Agency to individuals for the 1996-97 academic year.
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